Some situations are predicated on a determination being rendered so that the situation is allowed to progress. If the determination is rendered by a human third party, the determination will unavoidably comprise some subjectivity. The subjective component may be based, at least in part, on perception that may be influenced by a variety of factors including the quality of data on which the determination is rendered, the environment, etc. In at least one practical example, sports officiating may be deemed to be most judicious when calls are made in a timely, accurate and fair manner. In an effort to reduce officiating errors caused by human perception and to improve accuracy and fairness, sports officiating has increasingly employed video replay. For example, a sporting event may be paused to allow officials to review video footage of a play. Video review may facilitate better post hoc judgments on calls that were made during the action of the game, and thus, for the correction of inadvertent officiating errors. Following the decision to allow a call to stand or to overturn the call based on the video review, game play may resume.
While the benefits of video replay are apparent, implementing video review is not a total solution, and may in some respects be problematic. Video replay occurs after the fact and is not capable of providing more clarity in real-time. Determinations made based on reviewing a video replay are unavoidably subjective based on the interpretation of the official and may be affected by various factors such as video quality, video capture angle, camera proximity, etc. As a result, video replay is an imperfect tool for clarifying what may have occurred in situations such as, for example, whether a player actually contacted another player, a game ball, game equipment, etc., and to what extent any contact may have affected game play. Implementing video replay may result in play being stopped repeatedly to allow for official review, which may annoy fans and cause scheduling issues due to sporting events running long. Additionally, there are a variety of training or game situations where the use of an official is desired but impractical or unaffordable.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.